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A sign tells customers Saturday that face masks are required after getting in line at Maine Beer Company in Freeport. Brianna Soukup/Staff Photographer
Maine recorded no new deaths from COVID-19 for a fifth straight day Monday and only 16 additional cases, even as college students across the state have been tested en masse as they return to campus.
The Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention now has tracked 4,526 confirmed and probable cases of the virus since mid-March, along with 132 deaths. The number of active cases stands at 471, one more than Sunday.
The seven-day average Monday was 25.4 cases, up slightly from a seven-day average of 23.7 on Aug. 24, but a substantial increase over the average of 14.1 cases for the seven days ending Aug. 11, which was the lowest since the early days of the pandemic in Maine.
Slightly more than 80 percent of the state’s cases have been tracked to Cumberland, York and Androscoggin counties, although Penobscot County has seen the biggest increase over the last two weeks.
There have been pockets of cases at some Maine colleges and universities but no large outbreaks so far. The University of Maine System has tracked 12 known cases among students or employees as of Monday, and the University of New England in Biddeford is investigating three cases associated with an off-campus gathering.
There were no additional primary cases Monday from an outbreak associated with a wedding in Millinocket on Aug. 7. That event has been linked to more than 130 cases so far, including outbreaks at two other locations that continue to grow.
As of Monday, 19 staff members and 37 inmates at the York County Jail had tested positive, and 10 additional cases have been linked to the jail outbreak through secondary transmission, or close contact with a confirmed case. The jail outbreak was traced to a staff member who attended the Millinocket wedding.
Also connected to the wedding is an outbreak of 11 cases among employees and residents of Maplecrest Rehabilitation Center in Madison. The outbreak at Maplecrest occurred after a staff member there became infected by someone who was a close contact of a wedding attendee.
So far, one person who had contact with a wedding attendee died after contracting the virus. Theresa Dentremont, 83, died on Aug. 21 at the Millinocket Regional Hospital, not long after she got sick, her stepson told the Boston Globe.
The state briefly suspended the license of the Big Moose Inn in Millinocket, which hosted the wedding reception, for failing to follow guidance on large indoor gatherings.
The state also is investigating an outbreak at the Calvary Baptist Church in Sanford, whose pastor, Todd Bell, officiated the Millinocket wedding. Five cases of the virus have been linked to that church, but state officials have not yet concluded that they are linked to the wedding.
Bell told the Press Herald in an email Sunday that he was not responding to interview requests because news outlets “seek fear and drama not truth!” He said all five people with COVID-19 at his church, including his 78-year-old father, “have finished their quarantine and are doing well.” His church has continued to host in-person services, including on Sunday.
The Maine CDC has been notifying people who are known to have been in close contact with confirmed patients in the Sanford outbreak. Anyone who attended services at Calvary Baptist from Aug. 9-23, or who attended the church’s vacation Bible school Aug. 10-14, could also have been exposed, health officials said.
Although Maine’s case numbers have risen slightly, hospitalizations related to COVID-19 remain low. As of Monday, only six people were in the hospital, four of them in intensive care. In all, 420 people have been hospitalized at some point.
Maine also continues to see its positivity rate drop, which is a sign that a broad cross-section of the population is being tested. On Monday, the state’s one-day positivity rate, based on more than 3,200 tests conducted, was o.43 percent. The seven-day average is 0.63 percent.
Dr. Nirav Shah, director of the Maine CDC, said Monday that Maine has increased its testing volume by 72 percent over the last 30 days and is now conducting 298 tests for every 100,000 Mainers.
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